USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield (Berkshire County), Massachusetts, from the year 1800 to the year 1876 > Part 21
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The necessities of the service were pressing; operations on the northern frontier and in Canada were among the earliest pro- posed ; it was hoped that troops for this purpose would be rapidly enlisted ; and it was desirable to complete the buildings for their rendezvous as soon as possible. Capt. John Dickinson took the contract to have them ready in sixty days, and fulfilled it ; although his health was so infirm that it was necessary for his daughter-now Mrs. C. T. Fenn-to drive with him daily in his chaise from their residence on the corner of East and Second streets, to the Cantonment grounds, in order that he might super- intend the work. All the town came together at the raising of the frames, and in return for their aid enjoyed a merry and patri- otic hour.
Afterwards, a plain two-story building was erected, for a hos- pital, in the south-west corner of the purchase of thirteen acres. And, on North street, the thrifty politician, as well as thrifty farmer, Joseph Shearer, built his sutler's shop.
seven acres and ninety-three rods, east of the first, is dated January 27, 1815, and the price $680. [Berkshire Registry of Deeds.] It seems probable that the United States took possession of the ground under an agreement with Mr. Allen, and an understanding with the general public, whose interest it was that the government should have the land.
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Before the buildings were well under way, there were received two thousand stand of arms, with a full complement of camp-ket- tles, uniforms and other military equipments for the northern army.
On the 24th of June, a detachment of seventy fine-looking men from Captain Harris's company of light dragoons-the advance of the regiment which it was intended to gather here-came proudly marching into town. They were not yet mounted, and had marched, in eight days, one hundred and forty miles, from Boston. After a midsummer day's tramp across the Berkshire hills, they must have been somewhat dusty and way-worn; but, before entering the village, they had a little furbishing and refreshing, and, as they marched up East and North streets, " they made an excellent appearance : of good size, young, healthy and active." The sight thrilled the hearts of all, save the most inveterate partisans of England. The democrats had been told by their newspaper of the preceding week, that these gallant youth came "for the glorious purpose of defending the rights which had too long been trampled upon with impunity ;" and they welcomed them with wild delight.
The school-teachers, with due instruction as to the significance of the spectacle, released their broods, to gaze upon, and salute with their childish greetings, the gay troopers whom they looked upon as the successors of Marion's men and Harry Lee's Light- horse ; for the patriotic old pastors who, in many households, had tanght the fathers the political gospel of Virginian statesmen, did not fail to delight the children with stories of southern heroes. Old men, who were children then, relate with animation their emotions at the sight presented by Lieutenant Wheelock's dragoons ; and, often, afterwards, when they were released from their tasks, as detachment after detachment of troops for the northern army passed through the town from the east; or large squads of prisoners, after the victories on the lakes and on the northern frontier, marched down West street. Such spectacles were frequent in the streets of Pittsfield, from that date until the returning tide of war, in 1815, brought back the victors of the Niagara frontier. But there is something which is never afterwards experienced, in the first peal of the trumpet, the first flash of serried arms in the streets, and the first array of men ready to do battle for their country, which, in each new war,
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breaks the stagnation of long-accustomed peace ; and the Pitts- field people of 1812 never, probably, greeted another corps with precisely the same emotions as those excited by the appearance of the light-dragoons. The peculiar nature of this branch of the service, by far the most fascinating to the imagination, and the fact that it was the only corps of the kind to be raised in Mas- sachusetts, also added to the effect.
South of the unfinished barracks, the Cantonment grounds cov- ered a beautiful level area of eight or nine acres, which had been Rev. Mr. Allen's meadow ; and upon this the dragoons encamped -as other detachments afterwards did, from time to time, when the barracks were insufficient. Lieutenant Wheelock was compli- mented as an able, spirited and humane 1 officer, and the soldier- like appearance, and orderly conduct of his men, were much applauded. The troop remained at the Cantonment several months, and continued to maintain the good opinion of the citi- zeus, with whom the soldiers mingled as freely as was consistent with good discipline, especially on occasions of patriotic rejoicing. And a brief account of one of these instances in the Sun confirms our belief that, however party-feeling and party-organization, stimulated and guided by extreme men, may have led the federal party to an unwarrantable opposition to the government in its conduct of the war, still the sympathies of the mass of its mem- bers were always with the national arms: "On the receipt of the news of the splendid and glorious victory of Commodore Decatur (the capture of the frigate Macedonian), the bells (both of the. Union and the First parish) were rung, and the company of dragoons under Captain Harris assembled with the citizens, on the green (afterwards the Park), and with two pieces of artillery, fired a national salute, and without distinction of party, gave the officers and crew of the United States frigate three cheers." There was not much affection for Great Britain in that spon- taneous outburst of feeling.
Before the arrival of the dragoons, seventy men had been enlisted for Capt. Bucklin's company in the 9th regiment of infantry. The pecuniary inducements then offered for enlist- ments for a term of five years were a bounty of sixteen dollars, and, at the expiration of the term of service, three months' extra
1 He proved in active service far otherwise, as to spirit at least.
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pay, and one hundred and sixty acres of the public lands, "to be designated, laid off and surveyed at the expense of the gov- ernment."
Recruiting can hardly be said to have been very brisk, as on the 1st of August, the number reported in the barracks, including the seventy dragoons, which Lieutenant Wheelock brought with him from Boston, was only two hundred; but these must have thought that their lines had fallen to them in pleasant places. They were surrounded by a population, the great majority of whom looked upon them as the defenders of their most sacred rights ; while, among the declared opponents of the war, there were many ready to welcome companions so genial and intelli- gent as most of the officers at the Cantonment proved.
The ladies, as ever in such cases, were full of patriotic enthu- siasm, which manifested itself in various ways, from providing stockings and dinners for the privates, to marrying the most gal- lant and distinguished of the officers. In this early stage of the occupation of the town, the first exhibition of this feeling was in the old and natural mode of extending hospitality: by feasting the honored guests. And, on the 4th of July, 1812, " the bounti- ful hand of female benevolence spread the table of festivity and enjoyment for the soldiers, who were regaled by the republican ladies in a style which reflected honor upon their patriotism."
On the 30th of the same month, the ladies of Cheshire-Elder Leland's town, ten miles north of Pittsfield-went down, laden with a collation upon which the editor of the Sun dilated with evident admiration : " An elegant and sumptuous dinner, served up in the best manner by their own fair hands-under a hand- some bower erected for the occasion at the encampment-and con- sisting of every variety of the season : beef, ham, lamb, pigs, turkeys, fowls, green-peas, string-beans, new potatoes, puddings, pies, and indeed everything requisite for an entertainment of the first order, which in truth it was." Lieutenant Wheelock pre- sided at the table, and many of the officers of the 9th regiment were present, and tendered their acknowledgments with a pledge of "their ardent devotion to the service of their country, and an assurance of the most inviolate protection of the American fair." They could hardly have done less : and one cannot help agreeing with the editor of the Sun, in his opinion, " that the man who had partaken of the feast thus provided, must be an ingrate indeed,
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who did not exert himself to the utmost in vindicating the rights of his insulted country ; " especially as, by way of giving a more piquant flavor to the sumptuous viands, the soldiers were informed that they were tendered as a testimony of "the respect and approbation of the ladies for the vigorous measures now pur- sued by our national government for the redress of the insults and injuries heaped upon their country for a long time previous, by the eternal enemies of liberty."
On the 4th of August, the whig 1 ladies of Dalton gave a dinner to the officers and soldiers of the 9th regiment, which was pro- vided for them at the tavern of William Clark, on East street. " What gave particular zest to the occasion was the appearance of the patriotic fair ones, who had prepared the entertainment and attended the tables personally." Many of the "whig " citi- zens attended, and in all nearly three hundred were seated at the table, at which Simon Larned, who had been appointed colonel of the regiment, presided, assisted by Thomas Aspinwall, its major.
Nor were these public and general banquets the only occasions upon which the soldiery at the Cantonment enjoyed social inter- course with the people of the village. The officers, and some at least of the soldiers, were welcomed to the best houses ; and it need hardly be said, that none found difficulty in forming pleasant friendships. In return for these hospitalities, the officers began early, and kept up until the close of the war, a round of balls, which, if gallantry and beauty could make them so, were, beyond doubt, brilliant; although gay calicoes were far in excess of muslins, and silks were rare indeed. But the music was good, the suppers were excellent, the dances-thanks to the teachers of the art, who were plentiful-were skillful and graceful, and all were ready to please and be pleased. After the lapse of more than sixty years, the memory of those glad hours, is still grateful to the few now living who joined in those measures, and maintain- rightly we believe-that Pittsfield has never seen balls to equal those at the old Cantonment.2
1 The administration-party at this time preferred the name of republican, but claiming to be the successors of the revolutionary whigs, affected their name as a synonym for their own.
2 Mrs. C. T. Fenn was one of the ladies at these balls. Colonel Aspinwall of the 9th, who lost an arm at Niagara, and is now the oldest graduate of Harvard college, was one of the most pleasant of the dancers.
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But we must turn from the pleasures which alleviated the irk- someness of barrack-life at the Cantonment, to the details of its practical work. There was, with recruiting, drilling, and study- ing the manuals of military science, in which most of the officers had much to learn, an abundance of it.
The dragoons, who were soon recruited to a full troop, and mounted upon horses purchased to a considerable extent in the vicinity of Pittsfield, were daily drilled in the tactics of their branch of the service, and, often, upon the neighboring roads glimpses of their uniform and glances from their arms enlivened the beautiful scenery, while their bugles echoed among the hills.
The 9th regiment-Berkshire's own-grew apace, although not so rapidly as its officers hoped. Colonel Larned was popular, and so, in spite of his severity in drill and discipline, was Lieu- tenant-colonel Aspinwall. Early in September the regiment had three hundred men in the barracks, all good material for soldiers, and drilling industriously.
The Cantonment was also the rendezvous for the 6th, 21st and perhaps other regiments.
On the 1st of July, Thomas Melville, Jr., who had just returned to his father's home in Boston, after a residence of twenty-one years in France, was appointed commissary and superintendent of supplies for the army, with the rank of major.
At a later period of the war he was made United States deputy marshal and agent for prisoners of war. In fact, although some- times outranked by regimental commanders at the station, Major Melville was the organizer and superintendent of the post ; hav- ing his official residence at the gambrel-roofed cottage purchased of Rev. William Allen.
The establishment of a commissary station and a depot for prisoners of war in connection with the Cantonment, furnished a cash-market for almost every kind of surplus product which the county or the neighboring region could supply, and contributed much toward making Pittsfield a local business-center. Major Melville's advertisements, commencing June 17, 1812, with "six or seven hundred yards of yard-wide tow-cloth," called, before they ended, for every variety of cloth, for leather, iron, beef, pork, grain of all kinds, vegetables, hay, wood, wagons, horses, and whatever else the county could produce, or an army consume or use ; and they were answered from a wide circuit of country.
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But, beneficial as the Cantonment and station for supplies were to the people of their neighborhood, they had hardly been estab- lished before the baser sort of the opponents of the war began to impede their operations, by inventing and circulating in the sur- rounding towns stories of altercations among the officers, and fre- quent desertions by the new recruits. It was to be expected, therefore, that the coming of Major Melville would be followed by even more violent attacks; and he was, in fact, obliged to publish a card of denial, which appeared in the Sun of September 17, 1812, in which he says, that several malicious reports had been spread, since his residence in town, which, being of a per- sonal nature only, he thought it advisable to pass unnoticed ; but, attempts having been made within a few days, to propagate a report which did not permit him to remain longer silent, viz .: that he was not furnished with funds to meet the obligations of the United States government in Pittsfield, and-what was more infamous-that, in his official capacity, he had borrowed, or attempted to borrow, money of a person here, he took the first public opportunity to "publish the author as an infamous liar."
This vigorous form of denial, which was quite in keeping with the custom of the day, proved effectual for a time. But, in the spring of 1813, the old calumnies were revived under apparently corroborating circumstances. A change occurring in the head of the quartermaster-general's department at Albany, the secretary of war directed that the payment of all debts incurred under his authority should be suspended during the adjusting of his accounts. Upon this foundation, various reports concerning the financial affairs of the station at Pittsfield-some of them gross misrepresentations, and others palpable falsehoods-were put in circulation.
Greatly disturbed by these reports, Major Melville went to Albany, and there addressed a letter to the new quartermaster- general in that city, Robert Swartwout, in which he said :
Sir: Entrusted with the creation of the military post at Pittsfield, Mass., and clothed with the confidence of the late quartermaster-gen- eral, I have been enabled to call forth the resources and energies of a considerable and interesting part of the county of Berkshire and vicinity.
Firm and undaunted in my measures, candid and open in my politi- cal sentiments, jealous for the welfare of the army and for the interests
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of the government, I dare flatter myself that I have merited the appro- bation even of those who may differ from me in political opinion.
It is painful for me to be obliged to anticipate that the measures necessitated by the new organization of the quartermaster-general's department may paralyze, or diminish, the confidence I have labored to establish-and it grieves me to reflect that those persons who have exerted themselves, and put forth their funds for the execution of con- tracts, for the account of the government, should meet with even a momentary delay in the receipt of their just dues.
In conclusion, Major Melville expressed fears lest the secre- tary's order might lead persons unaccustomed to the forms of public business to attribute delays in payment to a want of con -. fidence, on the part of the government, either in his own integ- rity or capability. In reply, General Swartwout, under date of May 8, stated that the suspension of payments was temporary, and under a general order in which the station at Pittsfield was only incidentally included. He added that he had already taken such measures as would shortly enable Major Melville to pay all dues; and added : "I am perfectly satisfied that you have dili- gently and faithfully discharged your duty in the various import- ant trusts confided to you."
Major Melville published both his own letter and the reply, in the Sun; accompanied by a note, which closes with the following warning, alluding to the stories which had been circulated, to the detriment of the post: "Should these reports be again revived, I shall conceive it a duty to the government and to myself, to take such notice of the authors and their abettors as will not, perhaps, be agreeable to them."
We hear no more upon this subject, and probably no more pal- pable slanders against the post were discovered.
While the commissary and quartermaster of the post were thus prosecuting their duties for the benefit of both the town and the country, the routine-work of the Cantonment also went on well. The buildings were finished according to contract. William Hollister and Oramel Fanning took the contract for the supply of the local commissariat, and executed it satisfactorily. Their first advertisement appeared July 9, 1813, and offered a fair price, in cash, for fifty barrels of good prime pork, one hundred bushels of good rye, with beef-cattle, lambs, and calves, ad libitum. It was one of the daily pleasures of the village-children to watch
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Mr. Hollister's great hay-cart, with its huge rack piled high with loaves of excellent bread, wending its way to the Cantonment.
Healthful as the location of the barracks was, changed habits of life, and unaccustomed diet, gave hospital-work; and death sometimes anticipated the harvest of the battle-field. In this connection, a new excitement arose. Pittsfield was not yet the seat of a medical college ; but it was not without ambitious young doctors, and Joseph Childs, a soldier in Captain Grafton's com- pany of infantry, being interred in the town burial-ground, some evil-disposed persons, not having a due sense of the sacred rights of Christian burial, on the night of the 20th of September, dis- interred his body and carried it away for dissection. Colonel John L. Tuttle, commanding the Cantonment, offered a reward of fifty dollars for the detection of the resurrectionist ; but although there was little doubt of his identity, no legal proof against him could be obtained. The excitement died away ; but, it being re- vived by a similar occurrence, a guard was at first stationed over the graves, and afterwards, a plot in the Cantonment grounds was set apart for burial purposes.
Among the camp-followers which the Cantonment brought to Pittsfield, was the first elephant which ever crossed the Berkshire hills. It was exhibited, on the 6th and 7th of October-the 6th being cattle-show-in the open space east of Captain Campbell's coffee-house on Bank row. The advertisements headed "Now or never," informed the people that that generation might never again have an opportunity of seeing an elephant; as this was the only one in America, and this might be its last visit to Pittsfield. " The elephant," it was further explained, "is not only the largest and most sagacious animal in the world, but from the peculiar manner in which it takes its food and drink, with its trunk, is acknowledged to be the greatest natural curiosity ever offered to the public."
Troops, by companies, or in detachments of recruits, continued to arrive from the east, and-after longer or shorter intervals, varying from a single day to several weeks, as rest, re-organiza- tion, drill, or other exigencies of the service required-to move on towards the seat of war.
About the first of September, news of General Hull's disastrous surrender at Detroit spread gloom over the little camp. But the Sun, in announcing the misfortune, was able to lighten the picture
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by printing, side by side with it, the news of the brilliant affair of the Constitution and Guerriere. The glory of one Hull relieved the disgrace of the other; which was not the only time in that year when naval victories came opportunely to mitigate the sting of defeats on land.
The capture of Hull's army leaving the northern frontier exposed, all the available forces in the department were hurried to the front ; and although the 9th regiment had only three hun- dred and fifty men, it went with the rest; Colonel Larned going in command, but Major Aspinwall remaining in charge of the recruiting-service for western Massachusetts.
One entire company of the 9th regiment, and a portion of the others, were raised in Berkshire. All had, by their good conduct, won the esteem of the citizens of Pittsfield; and they left the Cantonment, already a favorite corps. They marched, on the 4th of September, " well armed and uniformed, and provided with every necessary supply for a campaign ; both officers and men in high spirits." A number of Pittsfield gentlemen escorted them as far as Lanesboro, where they were met by a delegation from New Ashford, in which town the patriotic citizens spread for them a plentiful entertainment. Reaching Williamstown at evening, they were again furnished, "by its republican citizens," with every necessary refreshment. The next morning, they proceeded by way of Vermont, to Lake Champlain.
About two weeks later, Lieutenant-Colonel Ripley, of the 21st regiment, who had reached Pittsfield in August, with a hundred and fifty recruits from Portland, Maine, followed Colonel Larned to Whitehall, with two hundred and twenty men for the 9th and 21st regiments. Captain Harris's dragoons remained until December 28.
Early in December, the northern army were ordered into win- ter-quarters ; and it was so confidently expected that the 9th and 21st regiments would return to Pittsfield, that the Sun, of Decem- ber 3d, announced that they might be expected in ten days. The whole army, however, wintered in the vicinity of Plattsburg. The Sun, after mentioning this change of plan, which must have been a sore disappointment to the republicans of Pittsfield, requested the patriotic ladies, who had been diligently knitting socks and mittens for the soldiers, to send them to the house of Colonel Larned. In response, four hundred and eighty-seven pairs were
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sent in, and immediately forwarded to the army by Major Mel ville. The contributions were : "From Pittsfield' and a part of Hancock, 193; Cheshire, 143; Lanesboro, 51; Williamstown, 30; Dalton (six families only), 19; and a few pairs from a couple of patriotic ladies in Lenox."'
The winter passed quietly, at the Cantonment.
On the 20th of April, 1813, Jonathan Allen was appointed deputy quartermaster-general, with the rank of captain, and detailed for service at Pittsfield. The expenditures by Captain Allen, in his department, were of course, in addition to those made by Major Melville. Indeed, they formed a large part of the money which the war brought to Pittsfield. His estimates for the year 1813, in which the requirements were much less than in the succeeding year, were twenty-four thousand four hundred dollars ; the items being for horses, wood, straw, .powder, trans- portation, provender, and contingent expenses. For the month of December, 1814, the estimate for the same items, with the exception of the purchase of horses, was seven hundred and sixty- six dollars ; and for the month of January, 1815, the estimate was eight hundred and fifteen dollars ; for the month of February, 1815, sixteen hundred and ninety-two dollars.
These are the only estimates of which we have obtained copies ; but they sufficiently indicate the expenditures at the post, by the quartermaster's department.
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